Investigation of plasmonic material-based T-shaped high extinction ratio electro-absorption modulator with different dielectric materials

Abstract

The design and investigation of an electro-absorption modulator (EAM) based on a T-shaped plasmonic material is presented in this paper. Utilizing the finite element method (FEM), the properties of indium tin oxide (ITO) have been explored in terms of permittivity and refractive index. At an application wavelength of $1.55\mu m$, the ITO-based EAM’s extinction ratio (ER), insertion loss (IL), and figure of merit (FOM) have been calculated and observed to be 8.68 dB/$\mu m$, 0.028 dB/$\mu m$, and 310, respectively. Additionally, the EAM, utilizing vanadium dioxide (VO₂) as the plasmonic material has shown a shift in the device’s performance matrices. Furthermore, the performance of the devices have been investigated based on four different dielectric materials such as hafnium dioxide (HfO₂), silicon nitride (Si₃N₄), boron nitride (hBN), and silicon dioxide (SiO₂). When compared to contemporary devices, the designed plasmonic material-based EAMs have shown better performance. The modulators under investigation have the potential to become a crucial components of future photonic circuits.